Bradley Manning has spent over 1,000 days in detention

Bradley Manning has now spent over 1,000 days in detention - the web reacts. Online activists in Switzerland fight to preserve Geneva’s nightlife. And a site documents the final tweets of deceased public figures.

Bradley Manning has spent over 1,000 days in detention

New York City, Berlin, Melbourne… activists staged rallies all over the world on Saturday to mark Bradley Manning’s 1,000th day imprisoned without trial. And the Former US army intelligence analyst is due to appear before a military court this week for his latest series of pre-trial hearings.

He faces a number of charges, the most serious being “aiding the enemy”. He could be sentenced to life in prison for handing over confidential documents to whistle blowing website Wikileaks, including this footage of a terrible US military blunder in Iraq, as well as 260,000 classified state department cables, which set off an international diplomatic storm.

And while some see the 25 year old soldier as a traitor, others say daring to expose top secret documents makes him a champion of democracy and transparency. Web users the world over have been posting photos online in recent weeks to show their support. Some have even posed naked to denounce Bradley Manning’s detention conditions.

His lawyer David Coombs has taken to his blog on a number of occasions to speak out against just this. He says Bradley Manning had been forced to sleep naked in his prison cell for months on end.

The judge presiding over his court martial ruled he was subjected to excessively harsh treatment in military detention and granted him a 112 day reduction in any eventual sentence at the conclusion of his trial set to start in June.

Swiss activists fight to preserve Geneva’s nightlife

At the beginning of February, in a bid to combat noise pollution, authorities in Switzerland decided that from March onwards 28 bars in Geneva would have to close their doors at midnight. The ruling has sparked a backlash from sections of Swiss society, and web users have taken to social networks, slamming the decision and urging the powers that be to change their mind.

There is a host of messages on Twitter criticizing the measures, describing them as ridiculous. Posts in which Swiss web users share their fears Geneva’s nightlife will fizzle out forever, saying they don’t want to live in a boring city which has had the life sucked out of it.

And opposition is also mounting on Facebook where a group has been started to bring together opponents to the midnight closing ruling. The page has over 5,300 members and urges residents of Geneva to fight to preserve the city’s nightlife, by, for example, signing the various online petitions already in circulation.

And in addition to all these relatively conventional forms of online protest, some have opted to condemn the measures through comedy. The platform “NotreBruit.ch” for example which was set up by a graphic designer from Geneva, hosts all sorts of parodies, videos and other wacky creations, produced and uploaded by web users in opposition to the measures.

Strong online campaigning which is set to spread to the streets of Geneva in the not too distant future; a mass rally is being planned for Saturday 2nd of March with protesters set to gather at midnight.

Website documents the final tweets of the deceased

The somewhat morbid website "The Tweet Hereafter” documents the last tweets of notable and famous personalities who are no longer with us. Like model Reeva Steenkamp for example who was killed by her boyfriend the South African Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius, and also Caleb Moore, the champion snowmobiler who died after crashing whilst competing.

Meet Edyhte, the world’s oldest Facebook user

At the age of 105, Edythe Kirchmaier is Facebook’s oldest registered user. The Californian woman, who was born in the age of telegrams, had the account set up for her birthday last week and now uses the social network to communicate with friends and family. Close to 30 000 web users have joined her page which was launched in collaboration with the NGO “Direct Relief” where she has been volunteering for the past forty years to so.

Video of the day

Baby Q is a baby of many talents… as we can see in this video which was put together by his dad Joey Angerone… yes he has his very own band… and you can check out his first jam on all good sharing sites.